Historie polskich emigrantów w kinie europejskim
Histories of Polish Migrants in European Cinema

Summary/Abstract: Review of the book "Polish Migrants in European Film 1918-2017" (2019) by Kris Van Heuckelom. The Belgian film scholar draws attention to fundamental problems regarding the theme of migration: the need to link local and global aspects in the study of the history of cinema, the possibility of situating film production in a transnational perspective, and the change of the image of Polish migrants over time. Kris Van Heuckelom tries to address the question how cinema supported common stereotypes and how it reflected a certain way of thinking that has placed the East in opposition to the West and tradition in opposition to modernity. The chronological arrangement of the book allows the author not only to capture the significant political and social changes taking place in Europe, but also to show their impact on the ways in which the migrants have been portrayed in films. One should emphasize particularly the valuable originality of the parts of the book in which Van Heuckelom presents his argument, referring to the films rarely mentioned by other authors, and draws attention to their uniqueness in comparison with the mainstream film production.

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